CHAPTER

16

A moment or two elapsed before the sharp-eyed Subar also detected the methodically advancing figures. There were several of them spread out across the back field, advancing down different rows among the polymer-protected vegetation. Something about the way they moved reminded him of a previous encounter. It took a few seconds before realization stabbed him like a stiff finger to the gut.

“The ones there,” he whispered to Flinx as both of them crouched low against the side of the building, “they walk funny.”

“I know,” Flinx told him. He had drawn the compact, alien pistol from its boot holster and was holding it easily in his right hand.

“I’ve seen movement like that before. One of the guards at the storage facility we scrimmed walked like that.”

Flinx spared a quick glance for the youth huddled close to him. “Is that so?” His gaze returned to the warily approaching shapes. “That’s very interesting.”

Subar frowned up at the offworlder. “You talk like you know why they move like that.”

“I do.” This time, Flinx did not look back at the younger man. “I could explain it, but you’ll see for yourself soon enough. Just remember to keep quiet no matter what you see.”

A perplexed Subar complied. Another couple of minutes passed, during which time he was able to identify four, maybe five approaching figures. Those who walked strangely began to exhibit other peculiarities. He strained to see better. The nearest one, for example. Its head didn’t look quite right. Moonlight glinted off a long weapon, a rifle of some kind. That much was familiar. But the arms that were holding the rifle looked awfully thin, while the figure’s legs looked too big. Something brushed moonbeams aside. It could have been the arm of another infiltrator, waving from behind. Now Subar’s eyes grew truly wide as the truth of what he was seeing struck home. Even in the reduced light, he could not deny the evidence of his eyes. What he had seen waving was not another arm.

It was a tail.

He stared for a long moment before it occurred to him to query the seemingly all-knowing offworlder. “Is that…?” Fascination with the approaching, slightly bent-forward figures caused him to pause midquestion. He had seen plenty of images of the type of oncoming being, and viewed a number of spellbinding vits, but had never expected to see one in the flesh. He certainly had never expected to encounter one on, of all places, Visaria.

Flinx nodded tersely in response to the youth’s awed whisper. “Yes, they’re AAnn. There are a trio of them, together with a pair of humans flanking them farther to the east.” He gestured sharply. “There are the only these three, I think. As near as I can perceive, those closing on the other sides of the complex are all human. That’s why I chose to come back here. These three pose the greatest danger, and need to be dealt with first.” He hesitated briefly. “Also, I was curious.” A ghost of his previous grin returned. “It’s always getting me into trouble.”

“But AAnn, here—why?” Subar could only mumble.

Keeping his eyes and Talent fixed on the figures coming closer through the moonlit field, Flinx shrugged. It was not an expression of indifference, but a physical command. Lifting into the night sky, Pip began to circle, gaining altitude.

“Could be any of several reasons,” the tall offworlder hypothesized softly. “You said you remembered something similar from the warehouse you and your friends boosted. Now here we have three of them. It would seem that at least that many are in the employ of, or at least have a mutually advantageous arrangement with, this Piegal Shaeb person who wants all of you dead.”

“But,” a disbelieving Subar protested, “they’re AAnn. They’re the enemies of the Commonwealth.”

“Even more than humans, the AAnn are driven by the need for individual advancement. While they cooperate among their different clans and extended families to expand the Empire, personal ambition is what motivates them in their everyday lives.” He nodded in the direction of the approaching assassins. Close now to the first outlying structure, they had slowed their advance. Clearly visible were the muzzles of weapons held upraised and at the ready.

“Remember when we freed your friends? There was another alien there, representative of a species I’m not familiar with, working alongside the other human operatives. Plainly, this Shaeb is no simian chauvinist. Making use of offworld contacts, he not only deals with but in fact employs help without regard to species.” He let his Talent rove, pinpointing the location of each individual approaching threat. “An admirable trait in an otherwise unpleasant person.”

Subar pondered his friend’s analysis. “I didn’t think humans could cooperate with AAnn, or that AAnn would work with humans.”

Remembering a recent sojourn on Jast, Flinx peered down at the youngster. “It always amazes me how altered circumstances and a convergence of goals can change different sentients’ perceptions of one another. Everywhere I’ve been, I’ve seen that even when governments can’t get along, individuals can. Even individuals of different, supposedly mutually hostile species.” He gestured in the direction of the moonlit fields. “If they run true to type, these AAnn probably hold their human employer in outright contempt. That doesn’t prevent them from working for him in order to advance themselves. Accepting such employment means these are probably very low-ranking AAnn.” He considered. “Unless they’ve done so at the behest of an Imperial department, and their work for Piegal Shaeb is subsidiary to their real reasons for wanting to be on Visaria.”

Subar’s eyes grew wide. “Spies?”

Flinx was not smiling now. “Maybe we’ll get the chance to ask them.”

Why was it, he thought resentfully as he hunkered down behind a pile of empty storage casements, that every time he set down on a new world with only the simplest of intentions in mind, he invariably found himself caught up in situations whose significance far exceeded his aims?

On the other side of the complex, Tracken Behdulvlad was monitoring the infiltration of more than a dozen assailants. He was able to do so not because he had exceptional night vision, but because his property was equipped with a fitting complement of commercially available sensors and scanners. Installed to watch out for produce thieves and marauding animals, the hidden instrumentation showed the precise location of each of the approaching trespassers.

When the shadowy figures were positioned for optimal results, the agrigeneer addressed several commands one after the other to his master control console. Once he was certain these were being processed, he picked up his gun and headed for the furniture-reinforced position he had hastily thrown together in the vicinity of the front door. Ordinarily, not more than one such command would be issued in a week. Submitted in rapid sequence, they caused the property to erupt.

Surprise was complete. Having been assured their quarry would not be expecting them, Shaeb’s professionals were caught completely off guard as every light mounted on the residential complex, storage facilities, border fence, outlying structures, and cultivated fields sprang to life concurrently. Intense illumination flooded every corner of the property. Hidden speakers blasted sound effects that, at more modest volume, were designed to frighten away the native fauna that periodically tried to steal Behdulvlad’s hard-earned crops.

Dashing forward and concentrating their attention on the main residential building, two of Shaeb’s minions failed to notice the camouflaged trap that was designed to ensnare marauding ferezal grazers. Both men went down hard, their weapons flying out of their hands. One cursed loudly, his leg broken. Half blinded by the lights, half deafened by the amped-up sound effects, his partner struggled to help the injured man retreat in the direction of the fence line.

Approaching rapidly from the east side of the complex, a trio of would-be attackers suddenly found themselves running through heavy precipitation. Only it wasn’t rain. Frowning and looking up, one hired gun blinked, then began to wheeze heavily. Flanking him, his fellow killers began to rub frantically at their eyes as automated sprayguns sent a dense shower of powerful aerated pesticide raining down on them. Choking and gasping for air, they ran, stumbled, and finally crawled back the way they had come.

Charging from the west side, three of their colleagues found themselves splashing, then wading, through a bowl-shaped field of rising liquid. Thick and glutinous, it stuck to their boots and pants, slowing them down. What stopped them, however, was not the knee-high flood itself, but its chemical makeup. First one of the would-be attackers began to gag. Then her neighbor started to retch. All of a sudden the residential complex they had been ordered to penetrate seemed very far away, and reachable only by struggling through the rest of the fallow field that was being completely inundated with liquid manure.

Beset by a deluge of stinks, sounds, rotating lights, and the occasional blast from Behdulvlad’s rifle, the carefully planned assault dissolved into chaos. Straying from their preassigned routes as they sought safer, less manic approaches to the complex, several of Shaeb’s less gifted hirelings panicked and began shooting at one another, thereby adding another layer of pleasant confusion to the rapidly mounting mayhem that had enveloped the property. In frustration at the absence of live targets, some of them began shooting at lights, sound generators, any piece of equipment they could pick out. One of them fired into what turned out to be a storage tank for pressurized gas. The resulting explosion lit up the sky, producing a shower of bits of metal, plastic, and human body parts that served to further demoralize the surviving attackers.

Only those approaching the back of the complex retained their composure. Natural carnivores, trained from birth for combat, the approaching AAnn maintained their positions as they continued to advance steadily. Shaken by the raucous upheaval but buoyed by the steadiness of their reptilian counterparts, the two humans who accompanied them likewise continued to press forward.

Subar could see all of them clearly now. “They’re still coming,” he whispered apprehensively.

“I know,” Flinx murmured. “Look to the beam cutter you’re holding, and be ready.” His head tilted back as he glanced skyward. In the collision of lights and the darkness of night, something small and superfast was descending.

Despite the low-light sensors built into the face shield he was wearing, the underling who raised his pulse rifle and aimed it in the direction of the residential complex had not yet espied Flinx or Subar. His purpose was plain enough to the diving minidrag, however. Plunging almost vertically, she spat once, pulled out of the dive, and soared off into the night. The man never saw her, but he felt something wet starting to drip down his forehead. It started to burn his skin almost immediately. Reaching up, he rubbed frantically at the tiny trickle of mysterious fluid, with the result that the corrosive liquid began to eat into his fingers. Recklessly brushing them on his pants, he stared in horrified fascination as the fluid began to eat several holes through the fabric. Concentrating as he was on his legs and fingers, he neglected to wipe away the last droplet of fiery fluid on his forehead.

It dripped down into his right eye.

His screams brought his colleagues, human and AAnn alike, to an immediate halt as all four sharply turned in his direction. Dir and the other human raced toward the horrifying sounds. By the time they reached the man he was dead, his prone body madly contorted from the effects of the toxin. One eye had been melted away, and there were ugly burns on his forehead and right leg.

“Facronash!” the woman cursed. She turned furiously on the phlegmatic AAnn standing nearby. “You were the closest to Gerul. Why didn’t you do something?”

“Sseeing nothing,” the AAnn replied, no longer having to disguise its voice, “I could do nothing.” A clawed hand holding a pistol gestured in the corpse’s direction. “I ssorrow politely for your loss.”

“‘Sorrow politely’?” Stomping back and forth, hands trembling, the woman sought for a suitable response. She and the now gruesomely demised Gerul had worked together many times. “I swear on my insides, I don’t understand why Shaeb has anything to do with you lizards! You don’t care, you have no professional ethics, you breathe funny, you stinking, slimy, stand-up snakes who think you can—!”

Her tirade was terminated, not because she ran out of breath or insults, but because a thoroughly annoyed Dir shot her through the head point-blank. A shocked expression frozen forever on her face, the female mercenary fell over backward to land with a muted thump not far from the man who had preceded her in death.

When voiced, the AAnn’s observation was as subdued as it was scornful. “Ignorant human, knowing nothing even of your own homeworld. Terran ssnakess are cool and ssmooth to the touch. Not ssoft and flaccid like yoursselvess.” Turning, she loped back to rejoin her waiting companions.

Lal and Joh regarded her out of bright, vertically pupiled, no-longer-masked eyes.

“Difficulty?” Lal inquired.

“One dead by meanss unknown and dissturbing. The other I wass compelled to terminate to halt a foolissh flowing of thoughtless inssultss.” Free now to communicate normally, she added a forceful second-degree gesture of disapproval.

“Our number with whom to sstrike hass been reduced by two,” Joh reflected contemplatively. “Converssely, in the abssence of dawdling humanss, we gain the advantage of now being able to proceed more quietly.” Slipping through the polymer-clad field on broad-soled sandals, tails swishing from side to side and weapons held at the ready, the three AAnn made little noise as they resumed their advance on the residential complex.

Two approaching emotional streams had been abruptly terminated: one male, one female, both human. Flinx was not surprised. One termination had been carried out by Pip. He knew this because he had been with the minidrag emotionally when she had carried it out. The source of the other was not known to him; he had caught only the moment of actualization.

That left the three AAnn slayers still advancing on the complex. He was all too aware of the threat they posed, both to him and to those who were relying on him. It was possible to project onto them, though manipulating alien emotions was far more difficult than working those of his fellow humans, and if he lost control there might not an opportunity to recover in time to make use of the tools he carried. There was also one other option.

On several previous occasions the offworlder had surprised and even startled Subar. Yet none of these emotions approached the shock he felt on seeing his tall friend suddenly holster his weapon, rise, and walk out into the moonlight.

“Stay here,” Flinx told him brusquely. “Don’t do anything.”

“‘Stay here’? Tney, Flinx, what are you…?”

Calm and composed, the older youth looked back and made a calming gesture. Alarmed and bewildered but not knowing what else to do, Subar held tightly to the beam cutter as he crouched back down behind the protective pile of storage containers. True, Flinx’s deadly flying snake was still out there, circling somewhere in the dark, but still…He could not imagine what the offworlder had in mind, exposing himself like this.

He was about to find out.

Seeing the tall bipedal figure materialize from the shadows, Dir immediately raised the sidearm she carried and aimed it directly at the human’s forehead. As she did so, the softskin turned slightly to look directly at her. Without knowing exactly why, she held off depressing the trigger. Flanking her on either side, Lal and Joh rose from their stalking crouches and closed in. Like her, both had their weapons raised and aimed.

Catching sight of their lightly clad, undisguised scaly forms outlined clearly in the moonglow, the human stopped. Turning his head to one side, he deliberately exposed his jugular. Being beyond arm’s length, he could not reach for Dir’s neck. In lieu of sheathing the claws he did not have, he curled his fingers inward. The ritual tail swipe that should have concluded the greeting was, self-evidently, out of the question.

“Tssrinssat ne vasse nye,” he hissed sibilantly into the semidarkness. “Flinx LLVVRXX of the Tier of Ssaiinn extends a closed hand across the sand.”

It was difficult to tell who was the more stunned by this greeting: an openmouthed Subar looking on from concealment, or the three hired AAnn assassins who formed a line at the edge of the field. Weapons were lowered slightly while Lal’s voice rose.

“How comess a ssoftsskin by a truthful name?”

“And ssuch fluency in the right tongue?” an astounded Joh added.

Flinx took another couple of steps forward. “I have commanded the right tongue for some time. As to the naming, it was bestowed on me by the Ssemilionn of the bespoken Tier, on the neutral planet Jast. Artisans of the first water they are, whose works you would find pleasing to eye, mind, and tail.”

Even Dir, who of the trio always knew best how to interact with humans, was forced by her astonishment to pause a moment in her search for wordings. “Never have I heard of a human being given a truthful name. Yet your knowing burrowss too deep to be the invention of a facile ssanderling.”

On her left, Lal was clearly troubled. “Thiss iss no nye, but rather a clever sspeaker-after-water.” He started to raise his pistol. Above him, unseen, Pip circled a little lower.

Dir made a gesture of second-degree prohibition. “Not a nye, truly—but perhapss more than ssimply ssoftsskin, alsso.” She looked back at the human, who was taller than any of them but unlike many of his kind appealingly slender. Graft on a tail, she mused, sharpen the eyes, engineer some suitable claws instead of the ridiculous and useless keratinous nubs softskins possessed, swathe that disgustingly slick flesh with proper scales, and…

She scratched herself, grateful for the cultured pain. This was neither the time, the place, nor the circumstances for indulging in fanciful perversions.

“Knowledge of a modesst sstanding iss not enough to ssave you. We are honor-bound by the sstricturess of our employ to sshoot you, and to kill or bring out alive all thosse hiding within the buildingss you sshield.”

“By the-sand-that-shelters-life,” Flinx responded, curling the fingers of both hands into his palms to illustrate even more vigorously that he intended no harm, “I remind you that no matter what you may have set claw to on this world, your honor binds you only to the laws of your own kind. Would not the opportunity to profit more both individually and as a group release you ethically from any agreement you may have made with a worthless human? Truly, would it not almost require you to do so?”

The three heavily armed AAnn exchanged glances. After a pause of ritual significance, Dir looked back at the slim shadow standing before them.

“Our ssureptitiouss employment on thiss world demanded that for much of the time we appear only in awkward and uncomfortable camouflage dessigned to give uss the appearance of ssoftsskinss.” Her head inclined slightly forward on its flexible yet powerful neck, she strained with sharper eyes than those of any human. “Are you certain you are not nye dissguissed as human?”

“What opportunity do you flourissh?” the thoroughly pragmatic Joh hissed. The muzzle of his weapon had sunk even lower.

Though showing no outward change of expression and knowing he was far from successfully resolving the confrontation, Flinx allowed himself an internal smile. “A number of extremely valuable items were taken from the one who employs you.”

“Thiss iss known,” Joh responded immediately. “They are the sspark of our pressence here.”

Further amazing the trio, Flinx executed a perfectly timed gesture of third-degree concurrence. “What care nye such as you for the spark of a softskin? You owe him no allegiance. Who among you would not be better off taking these objects, which are valuable to my kind but meaningless to you, and profiting from them many four-times over and above the comparable pittance you are being paid?”

Another tripartite exchange of glances was followed by Dir inquiring directly, “We are on thiss dissmally damp world charged with following other interesstss, but…Joh hass sspoken sseveral timess of thesse objectss. You know their pressent location?”

“Truly,” Flinx assured her.

“You would reveal thiss to uss? Here, now?”

“I sswear by the ssacred sshalowss of Blassussar.”

Dir did not sheath her pistol—but with her free four-fingered hand she did perform a first-degree gesture of concordance. The tip of her whip-like tail touched the ground in a sign that was as deliberate as it was unprecedented. Turning her head sharply to one side, she drew in her claws, looked back at him, and voiced what was, at least at that moment, the most consummate compliment she could think of.

“I have been sstranded on this wretched globe for longer than I care to think, longing for the warm ssandss of home, and in all that time you are the firsst ssoftsskin I have met whom I have not felt an insstant and insstinctive urge to desstroy.”

A hand came down on Subar’s shoulder, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. It was an appropriate simile. Watching from the shadows as the offworlder chatted easily and fluently with the three lizards, Subar had found himself thinking about skin in ways he had never previously contemplated.

“Ashile!” He untensed and lowered the beam cutter he had raised. Not that there was any need to do so. He had been so startled he had forgotten to activate it. “Don’t do that!”

She was crouching slightly to one side and behind him, raising and lowering her head to obtain the best view while still keeping out of sight. “What’s going on? Are those AAnn?”

Subar nodded tersely. “Flinx is talking to them.” He heard the astonishment in his own voice. “In their own language.” Turning away from her, he stared back out at the impossible moonlit scene. “I never heard a human talk AAnn before. Not even in propaganda vits.”

She rose slightly, risking exposure for a better look. “Where are Shaeb’s other people?”

“Out front, I guess,” he murmured. “Or somewhere else on the property. If there were any more back here, they’d be gathered together with the AAnn.”

She didn’t hesitate. “If Flinx can keep them occupied, it means we have a chance to slip away! Once beyond the fields, we can hide until morning, then walk to the nearest corridor and hail a transport!”

He looked back at her, uncertain. It was a tempting thought. “What about the others?”

Even in the dark he could make out her indignant expression. “You mean Zezula.” Before he could respond, she rushed on. “Everyone else has the same chance as us. They can make their own decisions without you. Haven’t they always?” Keeping low, she started to back away from him. “I’m going, Subar. We might not get another chance.”

Torn, he found himself looking from her back out to where Flinx was still conversing with the three AAnn. What the result of that conversation might be he did not know. Would they let Flinx go, or would they shoot him down where he stood despite anything he and his flying snake said or did? And if they let him go, what would they do subsequently? Was Flinx, perhaps, tiring of trying to help Subar and his friends and quietly arranging his own escape? Doubt crept into Subar’s mind. In its presence, Ashile’s insistence was a powerful lure. And for insurance, he had the beam cutter.

“Are you coming?” She was already halfway around the nearest corner.

Staying in a low crouch, he backed away from the shielding mound of containers and worked his way around to where she was waiting for him. Together they surveyed their immediate surroundings, finally settling on a route that would take them far to the right of the implausible hissing conversation. Sprinting across the first moonlit gap, they headed for the property’s main storage building. No shots were fired in their direction, and no shouts remarked on their passage.

The final speak was formal and respectful. Flinx lingered for a moment, watching as the three AAnn melted away into the night. Returning to the city, they would redon their human disguises and, following his instructions, set about vastly improving their financial status at a shaken Piegal Shaeb’s expense. They would regard it as fitting recompense for having to spend so much time on a soggy, human-settled world. Unlike the youngsters in the residential complex, the trio of mature nye were not afraid of retribution from their former human employer. Skilled agents, they could well look after themselves.

His satisfaction ebbed as he made his way back to the complex. A distinctive and unexpected shift had taken place in the emotional resonance of one particular individual he had been closely monitoring. As Pip descended toward him, he worriedly increased his pace.

“Subar? Subar!”

Disregarding the instructions to stay put, the youth had vanished. Reaching out, Flinx passed lightly over various emotive identities, some frightened, some determined, some homicidal, until he located the one he sought. It was accompanied by a second whose powerful emotings he also recognized. While Subar’s feelings were muddied and confused, those of Ashile were clear-cut and unambiguous. And powerfully linked to his. Having experienced such sentiments himself in relation to another, Flinx identified them immediately. Identified with them. His unease deepened.

Even at the most copacetic of times, such emotions were both dangerous and distracting.